Steerpike

With plummeting sales and the damage caused by the Johann Hari scandal, Chris Blackhurst had his work cut out when he took over as Editor of the Independent in 2011. Perhaps he saw the Leveson Inquiry as a chance to make a name for himself, because he became a frequent figure on the airwaves and signed his paper up to the government's Royal Charter on the very day it was announced. But he's cutting an increasingly isolated figure on Fleet Street these days. As the Times (£) puts it this afternoon when reporting news of a rival Royal Charter agreed by newspaper publishers: 'The Guardian has not declared support for the new charter and The Independent was not consulted about it prior to its publication today.

Do you recall The Politician’s Wife by Paula Milne? It was a TV drama that aired in the dying days of the Major government. Milne recognised that Major’s government was more Basic Instinct than ‘Back to Basics’, emphasising the toxicity, hypocrisy and general sordidness of the era. It was tremendous stuff. So praise the Lord: Milne is back with a sequel. The Politician’s Husband gets underway this week on BBC2. The subject has set tongues wagging. Of whom was Milne thinking when setting her drama in the court of a grumpy and doomed prime minister, with leadership rumours swirling and one family destroyed by lust for power?

Slight treachery from Boris, who has written a glowing piece on the occasion of the New Statesman’s centenary. While most people will focus on his dissection of the evils of left-wingery and explanations for hatred of Margaret Thatcher, something else caught Steerpike’s eye: 'My paranoia about the New Statesman and its terrific pieces went on for some months, until we finally met for physical combat, in the form of a cricket match. It was a torrid afternoon and I was full of nerves. Bernard Levin had come to watch, for heaven’s sake, and the New Statesman’s captain, Christian Wolmar, displayed what I am forced to call gamesmanship. At last we prevailed, thanks to a last-wicket stand by Alex van Straubenzee, our circulation manager, and myself.

A Maggie-tastic jam-packed Spectator tomorrow. Amongst the tributes, the words of Steve Hilton stuck out: ‘I saw her as thrillingly anti-establishment; as much of a punk, and as brilliantly British, as Vivienne Westwood, who once impersonated her on the cover of Tatler. Margaret Thatcher had the virtues most valued in today’s culture: innovation, energy, daring. She was Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, and Lady Gaga all rolled into one — and a thousand times more consequential than any of them. In today’s techno-business jargon, she was the ultimate political disruptor: determined to shake things up, unleash competition, challenge and confront vested interests. To be transformative, being reasonable doesn’t get you very far.

Steerpike is back in this week's magazine. As ever, here is your preview: ‘One of Lord Hall’s predecessors, Mark Thompson, is toiling away as chief executive of the New York Times. But he’s devised a brilliant wheeze to give his old chums at Broadcasting House a bit of extra work. Later this month his newspaper will co-host a Social Media Summit at the Times Center in New York. Thompson promises an ‘exciting line-up’ including world-class media luminaries like Matthew Eltringham, ‘Head of Web Site and Events at the BBC Academy College of Journalism’, and Dmitry Shishkin, ‘Digital Development Editor at BBC Global News’.